Atlanta — Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Friday said he would sign into law a bill that would make the Peach State the 24th state to legalize medical marijuana, continuing the rapid expansion of cannabis into the Deep South and underscoring a dramatic shift in pot politics for social conservatives in the US.

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

Although hemp (cannabis sativa) and marijuana (cannabis sativa var. indica) come from a similar species of plant, they are very different and confusion has been caused by deliberate misinformation with far reaching effects on socioeconomics as well as on environmental matters.

HARLEM — There are a lot of ways to make money from pot that don't involve the drug itself.

That was the message from three former Wall Street analysts who spoke Wednesday night to those gathered at the monthly meeting ofHigh NY, a group dedicated to changing the way people use cannabis.

“Now is the time to get involved if you are serious about getting in this industry. Public opinion has never been higher, we’ve never had this much momentum,” High NY co-founder Michael Zaytsev, who worked as a financial analyst for J.P. Morgan and then as a salesman for Google, told the 50 people gathered at the Harlem Garage.

Just as 13-year-old Branden Petro flops into the passenger seat of his mom's car, his eyes roll back. His face twitches uncontrollably. He curls into a fetal position.

It is his third seizure on a particularly bad day. His mother, Renee Petro, 36, jumps from her seat and runs around the car. She pulls the backpack off her son and grabs his hand.

"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me," she pleads. "Squeeze my hand, Branden. Come on baby, squeeze my hand."

Every seizure terrifies her. Any seizure could cause more brain damage. Any one could be the first sign his condition is getting worse. Other children with his condition have taken a turn for the worse and been dead within a year.

Landon Riddle, 5, who has leukemia and uses medical marijuana to treat it, plays in a warehouse where medical caregivers grow marijuana in Denver. Riddle’s mother joined about a dozen activists and caregivers at the facility to discuss adjusting to a Denver City Council decision that bans caregivers from sharing space, which likely could close down warehouses such as this one.

The Denver Fire Department issued 58 permits for warehouses to grow marijuana in nonlicensed facilities last year – marijuana not to be sold in dispensaries. This marijuana was to be grown primarily by caregivers for consumption by medical users or for the grower’s personal use.

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Sun Grow employee Diego Cambron shows some of the product that is available at the dispensary.(Photo: J. Omar Ornelas/ The Desert Sun)Buy Photo

On a recent Thursday morning, a crowd gathered in the parking lot of a Desert Hot Springs gas station to welcome the latest new business to the struggling city.

Mayor Adam Sanchez stood in front of the shop's refurbished storefront and cut the ribbon with giant scissors — just as he would for a restaurant, tire store or hair salon — before talking about how perfectly Sun Grow would fit into Desert Hot Springs' healthy "spa city" image.

Sun Grow is the first permitted medical marijuana dispensary to open in Riverside County, outside of Palm Springs.

It can be a dog-eat-dog world when it comes to the 226 medical marijuana dispensaries that the state has approved for business.

Case in point? One Southwest Portland medical marijuana dispensary filed a $400,000 lawsuit this month against the owners of another dispensary, claiming the second business lied on a state registration application to "poach" the first business' clientele.

Oregon law allows only one medical marijuana dispensary per every 1,000 feet -- and that's a problem for the Portland Medical Cannabis Club, which is the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Investigators found four pounds of marijuana, hash and postal service boxes and labels at a home in Oxford.

OXFORD, Ohio (WDTN) – Officials in Butler County worked with the United States Postal Service to find out who’s shipping marijuana across the country.

Investigators found four pounds of marijuana, hash and postal service boxes and labels at a home in Oxford.

Investigators say 25 year old Kyle Fledderman received the drugs from Colorado.

He’s now in jail facing drug trafficking and possession charges.

Investigators found four pounds of marijuana, hash and postal service boxes and labels at a home in Oxford.

WASHINGTON -- Drug Enforcement Administration agents stationed abroad attended "sex parties" that were allegedly funded with money from drug cartels, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday.

The report, from the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General, discloses that seven DEA agents had admitted to attending parties with prostitutes, and that they had been suspended for between two and 10 days as a result. The report focuses on the handling of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct at several federal law enforcement agencies under the Justice Department's umbrella.